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Eclipse 1964: 拳銃残酷物語

It’s been weeks since the last time I had a change to watch a movie (I think)? Where was I… oh, yeah, in the middle of the Nikkatsu Noir box set.

This one doesn’t start off in a promising manner — it kinda looks like a pastiche of American movies of the late 40s?

But the hero is a guy who looks like a chipmunk.

Did they stuff his cheeks with cotton?

What with the cotton swabs in his cheeks and the shades — is the actor part of a witness protection programme?

Richer cheeks:

When I was a boy Joe Shishido debuted playing a sensitive handsome young man in 1955. Next year he had a plastic surgery and made his cheek richer.

So it’s not cotton swabs — it’s a horrid plastic surgery. He looks like he has a permanent abscessed tooth.

Finally!

This is a sort of… deconstructed heist movie? I mean, it’s totally a traditional American heist movie, but it has a heightened absurdity going on? Or perhaps they just don’t quite get things right? It’s pretty amusing anyway.

Or perhaps it’s just sloppy.

Hasn’t this bar been in a bunch of other movies?

I’m just not gripped by this thing. The storyline kinda disintegrates, and there’s scenes that are just… odd? But I may have missed something, as my attention was flagging in some parts.

But it looks kinda stylish, at least. And the final scene is masterful.

https://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/crash2.mp4

Cruel Gun Story. Takumi Furukawa. 1964.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.

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